The ongoing story around UFO whistleblower David Grusch‘s recent claims has reached Capitol Hill. Grusch, a former Air Force officer who later worked as a representative with the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, made big claims that government agencies are in possession of UFO spacecraft and possibly even the remains of non-human pilots. Furthermore, he claims that the intelligence agencies responsible for investigating these crafts are withholding their findings from Congress. (A more detailed breakdown of Grusch’s interviews can be found here.)
Grusch’s claims, which are obviously unable to be verified, have stirred up loads of discussion around UFOs and government transparency. Wired went to Congress members with Grusch’s whistleblower claims, and plenty of notable fixtures on Capitol Hill weighed in. While some wrote the situation off or refused comment, some that went on the record were alarmed by Grusch’s account. Continue on to see what U.S. Congress members have weighed in on the matter.
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Rep. Steve Scalise (Republican, Louisiana)
“Obviously, we’re concerned about Congress being kept in the dark from a lot of these agencies,” said Rep. Scalise, who is House majority leader.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat, New York)
“We need to just look into whether there are rogue SAP programs that no one is providing oversight for,” Sen. Gillibrand said. “The goal for me will be to have a hearing on that at some point so that we can assess if these SAP’s actually exist. … I have no idea. So I’m going to do the work and analyze it and figure it out.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (Democrat, Hawaii)
“The allegations themselves are breathtaking,” Sen. Schatz said. “It could be a game changer, or it could be a crank. I just don’t know.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (Republican, Missouri)
“The takeaway from [the spring’s UAP briefings] is, they had thousands of sightings of these things over the years, which was news to me. So I’m not surprised, necessarily, by these latest allegations, because it sounds pretty close to what they kind of grudgingly admitted to us in the briefing,” Sen. Hawley said. “It’s not good. None of it’s good. I think we want to get to the bottom of this. I think it’s disturbing.”
Sen. Martin Heinrich (Democrat, New Mexico)
“Generally, I would look skeptically at many of these reports,” Sen. Heinrich said. “What I take seriously is sometimes we just have these really good, decorated pilots and navigating officers who are experiencing things that we can’t explain, so we need to collect data so that we can figure out what is going on.”
Rep. Mike McCaul (Republican, Texas)
“It’s a legitimate issue,” Rep. McCaul said. “On both sides, we just want to know if we’ve been seeing [UAPs] that are not man-made—is what the article said, but I don’t know.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (Republican, Florida)
“I have seen evidence of craft that I am not familiar with any of our allies or adversaries or even our country possessing,” Sen. Gaetz said, citing previous UFO disclosures.
